The New York Times reports the words "blood atonement" were found on a notebook owned by William Hooper Young.
"Jewels of Murdered Anna Pulitzer Found," New York Times, September 21, 1902, 1-2
"Hooper Young is a degenerate and scoundrel of the worst sort. Nobody who ever knew him wants to have any dealings with him. He is not a Mormon. I think he once joined the Methodist Church, but he didn't have any religion that I could see. The talk of his having studied the Bible carefully is ridiculous, and 'blood atonement' is not a doctrine of the Mormon Church, as some one has stated."
This "blood atonement" of which the Elder spoke referred to something written in the flat on the night that Capt. Schmittberger and his companions went there and found that the Pulitzer woman had been murdered in the front bedroom. On the first two pages of the book were written the two words seen above, and under them were half a dozen references to the Bible. When the verses were looked up they were found to bear on atonement for crime. . . .
It was learned from Janitor Cronk of the Clarence apartment house that Young went out into the Park last week to play with his (Cronk's) daughter. They came back after a little while, and then Young urged the child to go up to the flat and have a game of "tag."
His manner was so insistent that she thought the request was unusual and told her mother about it. The Cronk family, having heard the "blood atonement" theory discussed are rejoicing that their child escaped the fate which later befell Mrs. Anna Pulitzer.